The Ballerina’s Guide to Breast Augmentation: Natural, Petite Breast Augmentation in La Jolla & San Diego

Living in San Diego, an active lifestyle is part of everyday life for many of my patients. Whether it’s running, Pilates, yoga, surfing, tennis, or simply spending a lot of time in swimsuits and athletic clothing, many women don’t want breast implants that overwhelm the physique they’ve worked hard to build.

Some want just enough volume to better fill out a swimsuit or dress, or to feel more comfortable in workout clothes while maintaining an athletic look with subtle fullness. Others want to restore breast fullness lost after pregnancy, breastfeeding, weight loss, or intense exercise.

The goal is different for every woman.

As a plastic surgeon, my job isn’t to choose a breast size for you. It’s to understand your definition of natural and design an operation that works with your anatomy.

Recovery for active patients: Most patients take about a week off from work and normal daily activity, with light walking encouraged early on to support circulation. Higher-impact exercise and upper-body activity are typically restricted for several weeks to allow the implant pocket and any incisions to heal properly. For athletic patients, I find it helpful to talk through a realistic return-to-activity timeline at your consultation, since “back to normal” looks different for a runner than it does for someone doing Pilates or yoga.

For women considering their first breast augmentation, one of the most common questions I hear is: “How many cc’s should I get?”

But volume is only part of the equation.

With petite breast augmentation, implant width, projection, profile, existing breast tissue, and chest-wall anatomy can be just as important as the number of cc’s.

The same implant can look subtle on one woman and dramatically augmented on another.

When I plan a breast augmentation at BSA Plastic Surgery in La Jolla, I select implants based on your individual breast and chest measurements, existing tissue, lifestyle, and the silhouette you want to achieve.

Natural doesn’t necessarily mean small. It means proportional.

Some of my patients come to my La Jolla plastic surgery practice with implants they once loved but that now simply feel too large for their body.

Sometimes aesthetic preferences change. Other times, a patient has lost weight and an implant that once felt proportional now looks or feels too prominent on her smaller frame.

A breast implant exchange allows me to replace a larger implant with a smaller implant that better complements your current proportions.

However, downsizing isn’t always as simple as exchanging one implant for another. Larger implants can stretch the breast skin and tissues over time. Once that volume is removed, there may be excess skin or a lower nipple position.

In these cases, I may recommend combining implant downsizing with a mastopexy, or breast lift. The lift allows me to remove excess skin and reshape the breast around the smaller implant, creating a perkier, more compact breast rather than leaving behind an empty or deflated appearance.

For women who want a modest increase in breast volume without relying entirely on an implant, breast fat grafting can be a beautiful option.

It also comes with a nice two-for-one benefit: the fat has to come from somewhere.

Using liposuction, I can remove unwanted fat from an area such as the abdomen or thighs, carefully process it, and transfer that fat to the breasts.

This allows me to contour the donor area while using your own tissue to create soft, natural breast volume.

Not every transferred fat cell survives, which means fat grafting is less predictable than an implant when we’re trying to achieve a very specific increase in size. But the fat that successfully establishes a blood supply becomes living tissue and can provide natural, long-lasting volume.

I also use fat grafting in combination with breast implants when appropriate. Strategically placed fat can help soften implant edges and transitions and fine-tune breast shape.

For the right patient, combining liposuction and breast fat transfer in San Diego can create a particularly natural result because we’re improving proportions on both sides of the equation.